Friday, April 29, 2016

Most Ridiculous Moment – April 24, 2016

“Identity
Politics”

It
was a fun day on the Sunday talks shows. Reince Preibus and Charles
Koch worked out their issues on national television, Bill Kristol is
trying to get a General sign on to his plan for an independent run
for President; and conservatives pundits are worried that America is
too driven by “identity politics.”

Bernie
Sanders was on ABC and CBS, where he explained his worse showing
among low-income voters, by saying “poor people don't vote. I mean,
that's just a fact,” and “I would hope that if I am the nominee
that on Election Day you're going to see a very, very large voter
turnout,” and
added,
“if we got a voter turnout of 75 percent, this country would be
radically transformed.”

On
ABC, George Stephanopoulos asked Reince Priebus why so many prominent
Republicans, such as Senators John McCain, Mark Kirk, and Kelly
Ayotte

are already announcing
they will not go to the Republican Convention. Priebus said,, “I
don't remember seeing some of those folks at the convention in the
past.” Stephanopoulos replied “Well,
John McCain was your nominee.”

Priebus
also unveiled his general election strategy, saying, “We had two
soldiers from Benghazi at the RNC meeting who were

lied to by Hillary
Clinton.”

Also
on ABC, Jon Karl, sat down with the ninth richest person in the
world, Charles Koch. Koch said “absolutely,” the system is rigged
in favor of the wealthiest, and, “In favor of companies like ours.
Because

we have this corporate welfare.”

Karl
pointed out that, “Republicans are adamant about protecting a lot
of these tax breaks.” Koch replied, “absolutely.” Koch agreed
Bill Clinton was generally a better President than George W. Bush,
and that Hillary Clinton would be possibly be better than another
Republican.

Bill
Kristol, still mired in the denial stage, advocated for an
independent run for President by a Marine General, dismissing
skepticism by citing General Dwight Eisenhower, who ran as the
Republican nominee.

On
Meet The Press, the leader of the 'Stop Trump' movement
expressed her “total frustration,” that people keep voting for
him, saying, “I don't know why our voters ignored the 15 candidates
that might have been able to beat Hillary Clinton.”

With
Donald Trump openly mocking the idea of being Presidential, she
observed, “it would be funny if it weren't so frightening.

I mean,
this is a guy that's running to be the leader of the free world.”
Joy-Ann Reid suggested “that the party is the problem.”

But
the most ridiculous moments came with conservative pundit discussion
of 'identity
politics.'
Reihan Salam insisted that,

“What
people are missing is that Bernie Sanders is speaking to
a lot of white voters, in many cases, who feel marginalized by the
rising place of identity politics in the party, the rising place of
African- Americans and Latinos. They don't necessarily
think of it that way. But Bernie Sanders is giving them a way to say
that, hey, we still have a place at the table.”

Ezra
Klein pushed
back, saying he was “very skeptical,” and observing, “I
think when you look at what's happening with Sanders and the party
right now you see fundamentally a generational
split.”

The
Meet
The Press
panel discussed possible Democratic Vice Presidential candidates,
including Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Deval Patrick and Tom
Perez. Nicole Wallace, who
tried, vainly, to make Sarah Palin a plausible candidate for Vice
President, said of the discussion,

“The
identity politics just reek of incredible cynicism to me.”

Chuck
Todd said, “Oh, and you don't think we're going to see identity
politics on your side?” Nicole
Wallace
said “the
identity, this is where Republicans pull their hair, there's such an
opportunity
on the Republican side, because this is all about identity politics.It feels very cynical, it
feels very Clinton-esque.”

So,
even
the Koch brothers believe Republicans have rigged the system to give
benefits to
the
rich; pundits can't understand why GOP voters don't want
to vote
for one of their establishment candidates; and the senior advisor of
the team that wanted Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Presidency
says the Democrats are wrong
for being Clinton-esque
and incredibly cynical for considering a diverse group of Vice
Presidential candidates.